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Pensions Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part around the House, including the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friend for their warm support for the principle of the amendment. If the comments in this House are anything to go by, the Minister can be assured of the reception that his Green Paper will receive outside the House. I am confident that it will be greeted with warm support. I very much take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, that we have to see pensions as part of a structure. However, such a new single state pension is the keystone for any reform not just of state pensions but of occupational pensions that do not generate a savings trap for those on lower earnings. That is why noble Lords all round the House are so delighted to see the possibility of that keystone finally coming into place. The noble Lord said that we should minimise retrospective unfairness and avoid future moral hazard. Those words are well taken; they are wise words for us to absorb. My noble friend Lord McKenzie is absolutely right that, with the advent of a new single state pension, the issue of the threshold of enrolment into NEST disappears. It does not matter whether you end up with £3,000, £30,000 or £300,000 of savings; you keep the lot if the new single state pension is in place. Therefore, you do not have to legislate to avoid the moral hazard of low-paid women earning less than £7,500 a year going into NEST because their savings may not be worth having, given the effect of pension credit. As NEST will be reviewed in 2017, which many of us are already looking forward to, I very much hope that we shall be able to revisit this issue then as, with the new single pension in place, a threshold of enrolment will simply not be necessary. However modest the savings, they will be worth having and worth encouraging, so that even the poorest of people can go into retirement with a cushion against the adversities of old age. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for his generous comments on the background to the single pension and to his officials for their work in bringing the Green Paper forward. My only regret is that the Green Paper came too late for Report and that Third Reading has come too early for the results of the consultation. None the less, we are trying to wedge this in between the two. I believe that the new single pension will transform the pension landscape and should receive huge support. I was delighted to hear from the Minister that there was no interdependence between the deferring of the state pension age—in other words, the raising of the state pension age to 66—and the funding or costing of the Green Paper. That is key. It gives me hope that he and his honourable friend Steve Webb will be seeking to smooth the bunching effect whereby some women have a much rougher deal than others. Some wait nearly an extra year for their pensions and some wait for nearly two years. We all recognise that that is—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell—rough justice. I would go further than that: it is unacceptable. I and, I am sure, the Minister hope that a decent solution can be found to that in the other place. However, I am, in a way, using the amendment to do what we would have done had the Green Paper been introduced by a Statement, which was not the case. We are delighted to have the Green Paper in place. We wish the consultation good speed. We hope that the results will come through in such a way that the Government are encouraged to go down the path that they should. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Freud, that if he comes forward with such legislation in this House or the other place he will have wide and enthusiastic support. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 1 withdrawn. Clause 10 : Certification that alternative to quality requirement is satisfied Amendment 2 Clause 10 : Certification that alternative to quality requirement is satisfied Amendment 2 Moved by